[Walpurgis] - TWO: Corridor

I tightened my grip on the scepter. Fear lingered on.

Left without a determinate shape, and with an almost protean character, it creeped across the gaps opened up by the witch. There are no empty spaces in one's life, I told myself. And in the very interval between two states of determination: only fear or freedom can exist.

Meister Egon stood infront of the gate. His hand was still touching the gate's inner wall, the now last buffer seperating us from the witch.

"You're in luck." he said.

"Any number of principalities put together still won't pose the same danger a single kingdom would. All we need to do is cut the chain animating the fragments. And the whole domain will collapse under its own weight." he continued.

I took a deepth breath. Meister Egon looked at me, his expression still seemed ambiguous.

"Are you prepared? Come what may?"

"I am." I said.

"Then let's get going."

I could feel the aether circulating, Meister Egon's eyes were closed as he, with one hand, gently pushed the gate's inner wall. I of course knew what came next.

I made my way towards the Meister. His breath made visible by the chilling weather made me wonder once more if he did not feel the cold.

"Your hand." he then said, as he gently grabbed my wrist.

I could feel the aether all around me, the sensation was almost overwhelming.

Meister Egon pushes. A screaming comes across the gate. I close my eyes and leave myself to fate.

Another push. The aether surges, my heart is beating like there is no tomorrow.

The grip on the scepter and Egon's hand holding my wrist is all that I can still grasp.

A final push... And then it happened.

Stillness.....

We made our way through the gate.

And into the domain.

 

***

 

A deep howl reverberated...

We found ourselves in a large corridor.

The corridor stretched into dusk with no end in sight in either direction.

No windows were present. All that greeted us was a carpeted floor and elegantly depressing wallpapers.

The witch nowhere to be seen.

The immediate danger I was anticipating seemingly absent as well.

"Marschallin." said Meister Egon

"Now which path do we take?"

He looked at me with a surprisingly serious glint in his eyes.

At first glance, both directions appeared completely interchangeable to me. I could not tell which was which without having already having traversed one or the other. But that seemed to me a non-answer.

I looked back at Meister Egon for answers. Could he not feel which way to go through the aether? Why make me choose? But his expression made it clear that he would offer no assistance.

A howl reverberated across the corridor, but I could not tell whence it came.

'I don't know the right path!' I wanted to say.

Right or left? A or B? One would seemingly negate the other.

And as indeterminance reigned, I turned to Meister Egon once more.

"What am I supposed to do?" I said.

"Pick one."

"Randomly?

"Absolutely not." he said.

"You are not to listen to a hunch or any sort of baseless intuition either." he continued.

How then was I supposed to pick? I asked myself whether there might have been anything that I had missed. Did the wallpapers perhaps have a secret to them? Was I supposed to know what the howl signified? But the more I brooded over it the more the corridor left me feeling abandoned to myself.

"Aether." I finally said

"Do you wish for me to use aether?"

"Are you able to?" said Meister Egon in response.

I took a halt.

"No."

"Then why ask?"

I wanted to protest, but a tinge of shame colored my indignation a forlorn blue.

"Are we not wasting time?" I retorted instead.

"No."

"But Meister...." I could only mutter.

I wished to say more but nothing came.

He looked at me, his gaze felt almost unfathomable.

And then, to my utter bewilderment, Meister Egon walked to one of the walls. And in what could only be described as vile nonchalance, sat down on the ground, and made himself comfortable.

...What?

What was he doing this just as we had entered the domain?

My mind was racing, but Meister Egon seemed unbothered.

And as the Meister just sat there I tried speaking up again.

"Meister... What do I do?"

He seemed to contemplate my clumsy question for a moment.

"Pick a path. And then take it." he said.

"...Won't you come along?"

He did not answer. I could make no sense of what was going on.

I was left in disquiet, I felt like I was the only one not privy to something that everyone else knew.

I could tell something was going on but I could for the life of me not comprehend what it was.

I looked at Meister Egon one more time, he did not match my gaze. I tried searching his eyes for anything that would illuminate my apprehension, but nothing made itself apparent.

I took a deep breath. I gathered my courage.

And then I clutched the scepter and went my way.

Meister Egon was sitting across me, to the left of where we first entered the domain.

I went the other way.

The howling continued.

The Meister did not even look my way as I left, with his head turned to the other side he just stared off into the distance.

Was he staring at something important? Was that the right path?

I told myself that it didn't matter anymore, as I started my march into the corridor's abyss.

 

***

 

The material idea of the witch that had permanently occupied my mind for the last few weeks had now, or perhaps since we set out this morning, become almost chimerical. The dread she cast has remained a constant ever since she entered my immediate life through Meister Theodore's command. But the witch herself seemed to have now almost fused with this dread, liquidating her material form to become one with the chimera, forcing herself in through my pores, drowning me before I could even get a glimpse of her.

And while I knew that she could not have done this, and that she certainly existed somewhere here in this very domain, likely split across a number of fragments. Her presence lingered on just within my sight, but without my reach.

I continued walking.

It had been quite a while since I set out.

Meister Egon had long since vanished from my sight.

A vague anger welled up inside of me whenever I thought of him, but the fact that I could no longer see him anywhere near me subdued my fury.

In the empty expanse of wallpaper and carpeted floor my thoughts ran rampant. The corridor offered me no consolation.

Perhaps it was the clear distance away from the situation, but I wanted to talk to Meister Egon again. I wanted to understand him, and I wanted him to understand me.

I continued walking.

Still, nothing but emptiness greeted me.

What was I still doing? The whole endeavor had by now started to seem as pointless and silly as it likely was from the start.

My thoughts wandered aimlessly.

I thought of Meister Egon, and I thought of Meister Theodore and of Ingrid and Marcel, and of Nino and Miss Eleanor, of little Thorsten and Medea. Even Meister Amos' face brought about quite a few fond memories.

I saw Egon's ordainment again, in which he ran away from the ceremony in his underwear afraid that the robes would give him away, insisting that he'd stay a squire. Until Miss Eleanor found him hiding in the local pub. I thought of Meister Theodore turning a blind eye to us trying to raise a stray pup that we had found, as we genuinely believed that we had the old man fooled.

And while a certain negativity circled all that dawned, blossomed, and withered away in my mind, a kernel of cheer withstood nonetheless. And as eveything converged into one, a single sentiment remained in my mind: I don't want to be alone anymore, I thought.

I took one more step, and then I stopped my march.

How far had I walked?

And where it came from I could not say, but at that moment just as I comprehended what was infront of me I felt a strange almost perverse relief.

'Might-have-been, No-more, Too-late, and Farewell.'

And there she stood. From one moment to the next what was a completely empty hall now made way for the witch.